Decision at Doona

Chapter V. RETURN

REEVE WONDERED if the homeward trek seemed shorter because the agile native led him to a lower saddle of the ridge or because he was so elated by the initial contact. God knows the stinking recorder felt no lighter and, in the hot midday sun, both he and Hrrula were becoming fragrant. The native smelled – different: a not unpleasant difference, Reeve decided, though the odor brought no comparison to mind.

Hrrula's narrow feet with their vestigial webbings and claws gave him a springy step and more purchase in the slippery shale and the thick ground cover than Reeve's boots. A tail would be a handy thing in mountain climbing, Reeve thought inconsistently as he panted up the slope behind Hrrula. You could do without body ropes, maybe. How much pull would a tail take, he wondered, resisting an all but uncontrollable urge to grab the appendage as an assist to the top of the ridge.

Hrrula fortunately stopped at the summit, looking questioningly at Reeve. Ken wondered if the Hrrubans might possibly be telepaths and that Hrrula had caught his thought.

“Our colony is down there, across the river,” Reeve began briskly to cover his momentary embarrassment. He pointed, watching with fascination as the Hrruban's eyes narrowed to slits. The houses in their grove, similar to the Hrrubans' village, were invisible through the trees.

What was obvious from this angle was the plowed field in which various forms of Terran grains were already planted. Beyond that were the fenced pastures awaiting the arrival of the precious farm livestock on the colony ship.

The Hrruban gazed out over the valley, his sensitive ears twitching. He turned his head, its dark mane cropped close to the skull in the manner in which most of the natives Reeve assumed to be young wore their mane hair. Hrrula's yellow-green eyes glowed with the first trace of excitement or interest Reeve had detected. All the Hrrubans seemed possessed of superb dignity and poise Reeve hoped he had been able to mask his own nervousness. A guy's sweat got sour with nervousness. The Hrrubans' noses twitched so frequently, they must be sensitive to odor.

Hrrula now nodded at Ken and the two resumed their trek.

Reeve was not sure whether he was pleased or annoyed at Hrrula's walking language exercise. The native stopped to name each new bush or tree they passed. He would frequently point to one he had already identified, look questioningly at Reeve to see if he remembered. It kept Reeve alert, not alone trying to retain the mass of new information but looking ahead in order to see which specimen might be indicated next. But he remembered to get all of it down on tape.

That Hrrula insisted Reeve learn the native name for everything caused a complex reaction in the Terran. Dautrish, the colony's botanist, had already lovingly catalogued each new species. Well, maybe Dautrish could sell that catalogue for its esoteric value. Reeve's respect for the Hrrubans, however, increased with this insistence on the use of their own words. Of course, there wouldn't be time to learn much Hrruban but the practice might just help Reeve wangle a transfer to Alreldep. Ken shook his head, those rolled 'r's were hell to get and he was sure this was a pitched language as well, like the old oriental dialects. One misplaced inflection and you had delivered a gross insult back to the first generation.

There, again, was incongruity. A pitched language is the mark of a very old civilization, with plenty of time for shadings and nuances in expression of ideas.

Hrrula had stopped by one of the ironwood trees on which grew an immense parasitic vine. Reeve recognized it immediately as the one that had given Dautrish violent cramps from a simple smear-sampling.

“Rroamal. Rroamal,” Hrrula said, very soberly shaking his head from side to side. He made as if to touch it and drew his hand back quickly, shaking it as if it hurt.

“Bad? Rooamall,” Reeve tried, then grabbed his belly as if he had a case of Dautrish's cramps. He added a realistic groan.

Hrrula's mouth widened and he nodded appreciatively.

Another item of information to add to my list, Ken thought. Our body chemistries react similarly to at least one common irritant.

Hrrula held up one digit and repeated the word for the vine carefully. Inwardly Ken groaned again and motioned Hrrula to repeat the word once more. The native did and Ken made another attempt to get what he thought he heard as a rising inflection on the second vowel sound. Hrrula, listening attentively, approved the result and they moved on. In his mind, Ken kept practicing the sound, trying to impress on himself the correct inflection.

By the time they reached the river and the plastic skiff moored there, he had a variety of useful words, three with similar sounds but different inflections. With what he had on the recorder, this was a good start. Hu Shih ought to enjoy it, Reeve thought

Hrrula knelt by the boat, oblivious both to Reeve and the sudden appearance of Gaynor and McKee on the opposite shore. Hrrula carefully got into the skiff, looked at the far side, felt on the coamings and then spread his hands wide, questioningly.

He is used to a paddle, Reeve decided, smiling to think how surprised Hrrula would be when he started the tiny motor. The river current was too swift for a paddle-propelled vehicle.

Instead of a surprised or fearful reaction, Hrrula nodded approvingly as the engine took hold and the skiff cut the current efficiently. Hrrula hunkered down quietly, curling his tail around his toes, folding his arms around his knees, facing the Common.

Reeve threw the mooring line to Gaynor and stepped off quickly.

“By God, they are cats,” Gaynor said. “And he stinks!”

“Watch it,” Reeve said, keeping his face and voice pleasant. He turned a bit so that he could dig Gaynor warningly in the ribs. “This is Hrrula who seems to have some position in the village and was sent with me by the chief, Hrrestan.”

Hrrula debarked and stood, completely at ease, his eyes on the trio. Although Hrrula now had a clear view of the buildings, the experimental greenhouses, the park-like Common, he displayed no overt interest.

The guy's got innate manners, Reeve found himself thinking.

“Hrrula, this is Gaynor,” Reeve said slowly, pointing to Sam. “Sam, this is Hrrula. They greet by touching palms, extend yours palm down.”

«That character's got claws,» Gaynor said, returning the greeting. «I could get used to that – but not the stench.»

“If he likes you, I gather he keeps his claws sheathed,” Reeve remarked drily.

“Yeah, but when does he turn off that stink?” And Sam turned his head away to sneeze lustily.

McKee hastily stepped forward and touched palms with Hrrula.

“I've got a recorder full of their sounds for us to parse,” Reeve told his colleagues, “plus a walking language lesson on the dangerous flora of the planet.”

Is that why this Ha-rula came?" demanded Gaynor, stumbling over the rolled 'r'. Before Reeve could answer, Sam convulsed again into multiple sneezes.

“I couldn't prevent him from coming if we're keeping the friendly image intact,” Ken replied.

''How long's he staying?"

“Beats me.”

McKee grinned at Hrrula. “Well, let's get conjugating or declining or whatever is necessary to purr.”

"Sounds more like growls to me," Gaynor remarked. ''I'm no linguist. I'll go feather my bed," and he jerked his forefinger under his nose to prevent another of his body-jolting sneezes. "You'd be smarter to come along, Macy. We haven't got that much time here, you know."

McKee waved him to go on and turned to accompany Reeve and Hrrula to the mess hall.

Late that night, when Ken Reeve decided to take a break from his language dissection and endless playback of the recorder, he found Lawrence holding the floor in the mess hall.

“These Hrrubans are civilized,” Lee was insisting vehemently, his argument directed at a glowering Sam Gaynor. “And I don't mean stand-erect, thumb-opposed civilized. I mean, a mannered sophistication. You saw him at dinner; he knew the purpose of utensils and used his own knife to cut meat”

“He ought to. It was sharper,” Gaynor retorted.

“Speaking of knives,” McKee put in, “notice the work-manship on the handle of his knife? I wonder where he got the stones; that pink-purple one is a beauty. And I've seen nothing like it around here.”

“Must come from another section of the planet. They are nomads,” Abe Dautrish said thoughtfully.

“I wouldn't ask to see that private knife, not just yet,” Lawrence cautioned McKee.

“And let's be cautious in the gemstone field,” Reeve suggested as he poured himself coffee. “Some early tribes attach special significance to stones and metals belonging to their gods.”

“I just finished pointing out that their cultural level is considerably above rank superstition,” Lawrence said with some asperity.

“Ken, you didn't see a worship center in the village, did you?” asked Ramasan.

“Not a place obviously set aside as sacred,” and Reeve scoured his memory of the quiet village. “All the buildings looked residential, but then, how'd I recognize an Hrruban church from a proverbial hole in the ground?”

“Of them we got plenty,” laughed Lawrence who had so recently been a fence-post hole digger.

“Do they suckle their young?” Ezra Moody asked.

Ken closed his eyes again to focus on the scene in the village but he had too many details doing a reel in his mind's eye.

"I'm sorry, Doc. I did see young ones, the kids with their balls and some older cubs – I guess you'd call 'em cubs – were playing some involved throwing game. I didn't pay it much attention, you understand, but it looked at a glance like a team game. I didn't see a small baby cub. Some of the women, though, wore garments draped from their shoulders-patterned materials. Some didn't. Difficult to notice mammary development through the fur. A couple of females had a sleeveless top, then the ornamental girdle and a skirt similar to the one Hrrula wears, only they didn't carry knives. So it's obvious that clothing is adornment rather than cover-up. And the women didn't take any part in the conference at the central fire. They came and went. They cook indoors; I did notice that.

“Oh, and I saw a woman milking one of the deer-types in a pen by her house.”

“They can domesticate those deer, huh?” Ben rumbled. “I'd thought of trying it, once I could catch one,” and then he shrugged. “Deerhorns were once ground up as an aphrodisiac.”

“Good Lord!” Ezra Moody exclaimed, staring at Ben Adjei in astonishment.

Everyone was used to Ben's dry teasing humor but occasionally he would succeed with the pragmatic medic. Now he shrugged again, but there was a certain gleam in his dark eyes as he replied. “The wise merchant stimulates demand for his products and impotence is on the rise in our automated society.”

"Why, you wouldn't – you don't mean – " Moody stammered until someone's chuckle tipped him off.

“A moment, though,” Dautrish interjected. “Ben has a point. No, of course I don't mean ground deerhorn, Ezra, but I mean, let us be sensible in what we plan to bring back to mother Earth. Let us not duplicate or undercut each other's treasure. I am very tempted to bring back some of those nicotine-rich leaves, Ezra, for I happen to know that there isn t enough available on Earth to treat those circulatory diseases for which nicotine is a specific.”

“You can't prepare enough to make its importation valid,” Ezra replied. “And can we protect it and Earth from a possible cross-infection? We have to be sure what we bring in can be adequately sterilized, you know, or it will be jettisoned.”

“True, true,” Dautrish agreed, his enthusiasm waning abruptly.

“Can you sterilize feathers?” Sam Gaynor asked in alarm.

“Yes, indeed. Ultra-violet'll do it. We can put them through an insecticide to remove the quill parasites.”

“Parasites?” Sam Gaynor regarded the plastic bagsful of vivid feathers with obvious suspicion.

“Hey, which weighs more? A pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?” Lawrence asked with an all too sober face.

“Huh?” Gaynor was startled afresh. “Oh, knock it off, Lawrence;” he said when the sociologist began to laugh. He picked up his colorful treasure and left the mess hall, muttering under his breath.

“Take it easy, Lawrence,” Ken suggested. “You know he's got a low boiling point and we don't need to fight among ourselves.”

“He may just find there isn't room for fine feathers on the Codep ship,” Lee Lawrence replied, no trace of his recent amusement on his face. “Mart's rings, Vic's plasticized towers, even Macy's stones make more sense than feathers!”

“Yes, but feathers don't have much mass and it's mass that a ship moves,” Vic Solinari pointed out.

“Yes but! Yes but!” Lee cut in, his eyes restlessly darting from one face to another, his mouth distorted suddenly with his inner conflict. “Yes, but why?”

The anguished question hung unanswered in the tense silence that followed the sociologist's outburst. Each man must have been wrestling with conscience and conditioning, Reeve realized. Wrestling against the inexorable departure from Doona. They had accepted it, at least to the point of collecting items now unobtainable on Earth and therefore valuable; extraterrestrial products with which to buy a decent status. But the emotional shock was seeping past rationalization, past obedience, past all civilized compromise, and every man in the room was fighting to maintain mental balance in the face of this embittering disappointment.

«Why?» Ken heard himself saying. «Because history has shown that two civilizations cannot coexist on the same planet without competing to the point of aggression – and destruction. God knows I don't want to leave Doona either, but I goddam well couldn't live with myself if I stayed – and the Hrrubans got wiped out like the Siwannese.»

"One can suddenly understand why our ancestors found genocide to be the easiest solution to their own problems in dealing with minority groups," Ben remarked in his imperturbable fashion. "It was Columbus wasn't it, who eliminated the Carib tribes completely? Of course, they had only spears, and swords, not rifles and – " his voice dropped to a velvety whisper.

“Are you mad, Adjei?” Lawrence shouted, his eyes wide with horror at the big vet's soft intimation.

“Not from you, Ben?” Moody was stunned.

“You're sick Adjei!”

“What's the matter with you?”

Ben smiled as he leaned back in his chair. “I just thought I'd say it and it would be said and could be forgotten.”

There was no doubt, judging by the expressions in the room, that the thought had occurred to everyone; nasty, niggling, treacherous thought that it was. Ben was right. It was a relief to hear it spoken, to be able to discard it with honest revulsion.

“But it rather forcefully points up why we have a Principle of Non-Cohabitation, doesn't it?” he went on quietly. “However, we have progressed. Your reaction proved that. So we will have the dubious pleasure of being recorded as the heroes of the Decision at Doona.”

Ken put down his empty cup. He hadn't had enough coffee but he couldn't stay in the charged uneasy atmosphere of the mess hall.

“Doc, spring me out some stay-awake, will you?” he asked.

“Why beat your wits out over that crazy purr, Ken? What good'll it do you now?” Lawrence asked.

“I don't know,” Reeve answered honestly as he waited for Ezra to locate the stimulant, “but it occupies my mind and gets me from today to tomorrow.”

“Knowledge is never useless.” Dautrish said, riffling the pages of his careful botanical drawings. “I think I'd like to have a list of those Hrruban equivalents of all these. For my records, you know, and,” he favored Ken with a wry smile, “my own personal satisfaction.”

“Say, is Hrrula going back to his village tomorrow?” asked Solinari. “I mean, I'd kinda like to look around it.”

Ken scrubbed wearily at his face, waiting for the pep pill to take effect. “Hrrula didn't indicate any length of stay. I'd like to get one more good session with him on the tape before he goes.”

«You know,» Lee mused, an trace of his previous disgruntlement gone, «I rather like that – we learn his language.»

“I, too, approve,” Ben concurred. “For once, the native gets the linguistic upperhand. Unusual too, probably unique in contact history. Hmmm. When you've got the glossary, Ken, I'll learn it with you.”

The giant veterinary rose languidly, stretched until his joints cracked and, with a step unusually noiseless for one of his physical bulk, walked out of the hall.

“Well!” Dautrish exclaimed, looked around until he saw Reeve grinning at him. “An astonishing man. One never knows what to make of him. Anyone else want to grasp the golden opportunity of learning a real live alien language?”

“Fleeting opportunity, you mean,” Lawrence said, then added, “I'd give my sociological left arm to know what's been happening tonight at Hrrula's village.”